A Brief and Strange Encounter
by Jujubee1981
Summary: The human Doctor and Rose meet the 9th Doctor in an unexpected time and place.


They were sitting side-by-side in the small cafe when she spotted him. Rose had a cup of coffee and the half-human Doctor in blue was drinking much-too-sweet tea and eating all of the strawberries off the tops of the waffles they were supposed to be splitting between them.

Rose had just kissed his cheek and said to budge up, she was going to wash her hands, when she froze, catching his hand in mid-motion as he was about to pop the second-to-last strawberry into his mouth.

"Look over there." Rose hissed.

"What?" The Doctor smiled at her dotingly and bent to briefly and extravagantly kiss her back, which was still a new and precious interaction for the two.

This was an effective momentary distraction for both of them, but when another diner cleared his throat loudly at them, they reluctantly broke off. The Doctor gave a beetle-browed glare at the diner and said "Oy! Mind your own business." in such a startlingly accurate impression of Donna Noble, Rose's attention snapped back to the moment.

"It's _you_." Rose said urgently, giving him a little nudge to get his attention. "It's...it's the _first_ you, the you I first met before you became you now...before...oh you know what I mean."

"What?" The Doctor exclaimed, immediately squirming around to see where she was looking. His lean frame tensed. "But...but...but I've never _been_ here before." The Doctor protested, ruffling his own hair wildly. "Not this cafe. Not this universe. Not when I was him. I would remember!"

"Then who's sitting in the corner wearing a leather jacket and your old face?" Rose asked.

"I have no idea." The Doctor said and his eyes met hers, intense and excited. "But I'm gonna find out." He popped out of the booth and made a beeline for the man in the corner with Rose racing to catch up behind him.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor." The Doctor said, his voice cheerful but hard.

The man looked up with a start and took in the tall, dark-haired man in blue, then looked at Rose. "Hiya, Rose." He said in an all-too-familiar Northern accent. "What's with this guy?" He nodded his head sideways toward the Doctor.

"D-Doctor?" Rose stammered. Her eyes raced back and forth between the two of them.

"Hullo." The blue-eyed man said. "Bet we're all wondering what's going on about now, eh?"

"Doctor. I mean, I...is it really you?" Rose whispered.

"Really me." The man replied. "So, this must be what happens to me, then?" He turned to inspect the dark-eyed Doctor with a sarcastically cheerful gaze. "Cute, I s'pose." He paused. "If you like that kinda thing." He added. "Looks friendly enough if you don't look hard at his eyes. Yep. So. You're going to come along with me after all?"

"Wh-what?" Rose was baffled. Her dark-eyed Doctor was being strangely silent, his expression a thoughtful frown.

"You said you didn't want to come along. You stayed with Mickey-the-Idiot. You turned down all of space and time and _me_. Stupid ape." The blue-eyed man muttered the last two words bitterly.

"This never happened." The half-Time Lord beside Rose finally piped up. "This never happened, so how is it happening now? I'm not supposed to cross my own timeline but since I'm...how did?...whose timeline are you?"

"That's your problem, not mine." The blue-eyed man said dismissively. "So, what? Are you the next one or the one after? The last one?"

"Spoilers." The Doctor said a little smugly. "But here's the best advice you'll ever get from your future self. Go back and get Rose Tyler."

The blue-eyed Doctor abruptly stood and frowned as he inspected the tall, slim man in front of him. "You aren't a Time Lord...quite. What are you?"

"Metacrisis." The half-human replied. "It's a long story. I just made that word up, by the way, but you should probably remember it since you'll be needing it. How do I not _remember_ this?" He ground his teeth and dragged an agitated hand through his hair. He pulled a sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket and began to scan the leather jacket-wearing man.

"Hey!" The blue-eyed Doctor exclaimed indignantly, swatting at it.

"Where did you get that?" Rose asked, surprised.

"It's mine!" The brown-eyed Doctor said defensively. "Well, it's mine...but I nicked it." He amended. "You...you're exactly what you appear to be." He said, his brows drawn together in quizzical horror as his eyes rose from the screwdriver to stare at the blue-eyed man.

"Oh, good. Existential dilemma solved. Metacrisis, did you say?" The leather-clad Doctor said. "That's good. I'll have that off you."

"Huh." The brown-eyed Doctor tucked away his screwdriver and pulled out his glasses to inspect the other man.

"Really?" The blue-eyed Doctor looked at Rose in exasperation. "Specs?"

"Oh, stop being so sour." Rose scolded. She stepped around the table and reached toward his face. He flinched away, looking alarmed. She pursued until she held his face between her palms. "Look at you." She said. She smiled at him. "Never thought I'd see this face again. I never got to say goodbye properly."

Both Doctors began to look uncomfortable. One with a shiver down his spine, the importance of this lovely girl and the premonition of his death. The other with a bone-deep worry that something had gone horribly awry and a ridiculous little twinge of jealousy, watching Rose show affection toward...well..._himself_.

Rose smiled into her old Doctor's baffled face and said. "Please go back and get me, Doctor, and tell me you travel in _time_. I will stay with you forever." She bent and softly kissed his cheek.

He jerked slightly at the contact and swallowed before hoarsely replying. "I'm going to die for you, aren't I?" He blinked rapidly. "That's what this pretty version ten is about, aren't you? Dolled yourself up for her when it happened?"

"Ten." Rose parroted, turning to look at her human-Doctor with narrowed eyes. "_Ten?_" She repeated. This time it was a question.

"I'll tell you all about it, okay, sweetheart?" He responded. "Later."

"You _will_?" The man in leather was shocked.

"Oh, yes, I will." Rose's dark-eyed Doctor smiled sadly. "Go back. It will all be worth it. Go rejoin our timeline, find our Rose, and...let her give you joy."

The blue-eyed Doctor huffed bitterly.

"Trust me. She'll make you happy and you'll give her all of space and time. I wouldn't miss it for anything." The dark-eyed Doctor said, tucking Rose against his side possessively.

"For Gallifrey?" The man in the leather jacket said challengingly.

"Not for all of Time." The Doctor replied. "I've gotten very selfish...wellll, I've gotten my priorities straight...wellll...something."

"Please go get me." Rose said to her old Doctor. She squeezed the waist of her half-human Doctor and beamed as he kissed her brow.

"And you'll love me like that?" The blue-eyed Doctor said, jerking a jaw toward their gentle entanglement.

"Oh, Doctor!" Rose said, laughing. "You ought to know...I already do."

"What?" The blue-eyed Doctor was ruffled.

"I already love you like this, Doctor."

The blue-eyed Doctor looked gob-smacked, but shook himself and bolted the last swallow of his tea. "Okay." He said. "Right." He stood up and gave them a brisk nod.

"I'll go get you, Rose Tyler." He said. "And I'll make sure it will be..." he grinned "...fantastic!"

"It will be." Rose laughed and moved to him. She held him in a tight hug. He hesitated only the tiniest moment before wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her, letting out a little shuddering sigh of relief into her hair as if he had long needed to be held.

When they parted, the half-human Doctor tapped the sleeve of his past self and said, "I think I've figured something out. I don't remember any of this. So I have to...take the memory...so we don't jumble things up since we've crossed timelines."

"Yeah, alright. Sure." The blue-eyed man agreed after a moment's thought. "Make sure I know to go get Rose though." He said warningly. "Everything else before leaving her behind...coming here...this conversation...just wipe it."

"Everything?" The Doctor said, a little surprised. "Even how to get through the rift?"

"I don't want those memories." The man in leather said darkly. "I'm better off not knowing what I've done."

There was an instant of troubled silence.

"But getting through the rift..." The human Doctor finally started, his eyes disturbed. He considered what keeping the knowledge of how to get through the rift might mean.

"Take all of it." The man in leather said harshly. "Or I won't get your Rose."

Rose made a dismayed sound. Her human Doctor nodded with a jerk.

"It will be worth it." He said. His dark eyes told the truth and the blue-eyed Doctor felt the shiver of premonition.

The strange little trio exited the cafe and the sober blue-eyed Doctor led them down the lane a bit until Rose caught her breath at the pretty sight of the TARDIS occupying a corner of the street. She felt the long clever fingers, woven through her own, stiffen as her dark-eyed Doctor spotted it too.

"Stay out here." The leather-clad man ordered in his gruff Northern accent. "Can't have the two of us in there at once, or...one-and-a-half of us, mucking up the TARDIS's command protocols. I have to set her to travel the rift before you help me forget."

Rose's Doctor nodded, but still placed a gentle hand against the TARDIS's blue side after the Time Lord went inside. He patted the little blue box, still holding Rose's hand with his other hand.

"Do you miss it?" Rose asked.

"Yes." He replied. "But I missed you more."

Rose gave him a sad, but brilliant, smile and tilted her face up for his kiss.

The TARDIS door opened abruptly and they were interrupted by a grumpy sound. Rose got rosy as she peeked up into the familiar blue eyes. Being caught snogging a Time Lord's future incarnation was a new sense of embarrassment. When she met his gaze she found a little spark of something there that hadn't been there before.

"Huh." He said, looking between the dark-haired man and the pink and yellow girl. "Rose Tyler, eh?"

"I'm so glad you aren't going to remember any of this." Rose blurted, then began giggling. Both men chuckled.

"Ready?" The Doctor in blue asked.

"As I'll ever be." The Doctor in leather replied.

"I promise. Really. It's _all _worth it." The dark-eyed man repeated again. The blue-eyed man nodded even as he felt the fingertips against his face and his mind blurring.

The man in the leather jacket collapsed like a marionette and was caught by the man in the blue suit.

"Oof!" The Doctor said. "Forgot how much I weighed."

"Will he be okay?" Rose said in concern. "Will he remember to get me?"

"Yes he will. Can I just say? We just created a time loop, Miss!" The Doctor said with a grin. "And I can tell you with absolute certainty that he's fine. He's right where he wants to be." He looked into her eyes and she grinned.

"I'll put him in the TARDIS, then?" Rose said wistfully.

"Don't think about it. If he doesn't take it back to then, there won't be any now." The Doctor said as they each hitched up one leather-clad arm between them. "Well...roughly." He added with a so-so shake of his head.

They dragged the unconscious Time Lord to the door and Rose hauled him inside. "What do I do?" She called out the door to her waiting companion.

"Push the claw lever, the one...no...there! You missed it. The one that looks like a purple garden rake. Yes. Push it down and run to me." The Doctor said, holding open his arms as if to catch her.

Rose put her hand on what, indeed, looked like a purple hand rake soldered to a toaster, looked at her Doctor, and threw the lever. She was shrieking with gleeful excitement even as she bolted out the door of the TARDIS and into his arms. The door slammed shut and the great whooping of gears reached her ears as she turned to watch it disappear one last time. The Doctor held her tight, the wind whipping around them and then settling.

"Well." The Doctor said. "Well!" He repeated.

"We didn't pay for breakfast!" Rose suddenly exclaimed.

"Well!" The Doctor repeated once again. "I suppose we'd better go finish our waffles."

"Do you really not remember any of that?" Rose asked as they walked back to the little cafe.

"It's funny. Like a dream I can't quite remember." The Doctor mused.

"Really?"

"Well, that's the way it is with dreams that you can't remember, isn't it?" The Doctor replied, suddenly cheerful. "You never think of 'em till you get deja vu."

He held the door to the cafe open with a flourish.

"You were so bitter and lonely." Rose said sadly.

"Now you know what I meant - _he _meant - when he said you made me better." The Doctor added lightly, but his eyes were quietly serious.

"S'pose that's true!" Rose said with a twinkle in her dark eyes and stood on her tiptoes to peck his lips with hers as she re-entered the cafe. "Oh look! Our waffles are still here."

"Excellent!" Enthused the Doctor. He caught a passing waitress. "Miss? Can we have some more strawberries please?"

"You have to eat some protein, too." Rose admonished. "Humans need more balanced diets."

"Maybe _full_ humans do." The Doctor countered saucily and they fell into a familiar, domestic debate as, in the near past of a different universe, the Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS door and added, "Did I mention it also travels in time?


End file.
